EMILY DICKINSON
“Saying nothing…Sometimes says the most.” ~Emily Dickinson
Isabella Suppa, Morgan Lazowy, Brian Fitter
EARLY LIFE
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Dickinson was born in Amherst MA on
December 10,1830
Daughter of lawyer Edward Dickinson and
Emily Norcross Dickinson
Sibling to William Austin and Lavinia
Dickinson
Throughout her life she lived with her parents
and siblings until the death of her parents
Educated at Mount Holyoke Female
Seminary in South Hadley, MA
ESSENTIAL FACTS
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Known as “The Belle of Amherst”
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Her bedroom window faced a cemetery where she observed burials on a
daily basis
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Her first poems came about alone in her room
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1864 she had a eye condition which forbid her to read or write for sometime-
after that she never left Amherst
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Only two of her poems were published in her lifetime
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Lavinia (sister) found hundreds of unpublished poems after Emily's death
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Lavinia hired editors to chronologically arrange and publish her work
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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a former minister and author, seems to have
been her literary mentor
POETIC STYLE
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Famous for writing about what she knew and what intrigued her
Known for lyrical poetry
She is known for her poignant, compressed, and deeply charged
poems, which have profoundly influenced the direction of 20th-century
poetry, and gained her an almost cult following among some.
Unconventional style that revolutionized the genre and continues to
challenge readers
Instead of traditional rhyme schemes and punctuation Dickinson used
broken meter, seemingly random capitalization, and numerous dashes
to convey complex thoughts and emotions
Majority of her poems were untitled
Subjects of her poems ranged from the inevitability of death to the
simple joys of the world
Tone reflected Dickinson’s own emotional range–
joyus,witty,sarcastic,hopeful
SUCCESS IS COUNTED SWEETEST
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Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory
As he defeated--dying-On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear
BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound..
We passed the school, where children strove
Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
At recess, in the ring;
Feels shorter than the day
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
I first surmised the horses' heads
We passed the setting sun.
Were toward eternity.
I AM NOBODY! WHO ARE YOU?
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I'm Nobody! Who Are You? by Emily
Dickinson.
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog…